The present invention relates to a system for providing accurate and tamper-resistant information on the financial performance of coin-operated equipment, such as pinball machines and video games.
Coin-operated games are found in arcades, restaurants and taverns throughout the world. In a typical operating environment, the owner of the premises provides space for the game in exchange for a percentage of the revenue generated by it. The game owner or operator is responsible for maintaining the game in operating condition, and for collecting the money deposited into the game by players. Operators typically hire "collectors" to perform these functions, as well as service technicians to perform repairs.
Presently, the owners obtain information about the number of games played (or similar usage statistics) and the amounts of revenue received by reading information from mechanical or electronic meters in the game. Because these meters do not record when the information displayed was first recorded, there is no way for an operator to discern whether the number of plays has been altered, thereby leading to inaccurate reporting of game financial performance. The ability to tamper with the counters or meters without detection has led to abuse by unscrupulous collectors and service personnel who may decrease the number of games played in order to collect the unreported portion of the game revenue.
By providing a system to reduce the risk of tampering by unscrupulous individuals, accurate data can be obtained from the equipment, permitting proper and full allocation of revenue to the operator and the owner of the site at which the equipment is installed. Also, a better picture of game activity is obtained.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an audit system for coin-operated equipment that is relatively tamper-resistant as compared to previous audit systems.
It is another object of the invention to make the audit system easy to use by operators and collectors.
Still another object of the invention is to provide such an audit system in the form of a menu driven system wherein the user interacts with the equipment based upon information supplied in a visual display.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide such an audit system having the capability to alter game features such as game difficulty, pricing and other attributes such as sound volume, match award percentage, score required for a free replay based on the time of day, day of the week, volume of play and similar criteria.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art when the following detailed description of the invention is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.